I’m pleased to be able to announce (and only a month after the fact) that after years of labor, the thirteen-volume Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. by Roger Bagnall, Kai Bodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine Hueber has now appeared, published by Wiley-Blackwell. It’s not exactly an affordable reference tool for everyone’s library. The list price is $1995.00! But you can save $354 on Amazon, if you’re loaded and looking for the most authoritative and up-to-date reference on all things ancient (Western world, roughly the ancient Mediterranean, including Egypt and the ancient Near East), from the Bronze Age up to the seventh century CE.

There were twenty-two of us who were “area editors.” The areas include such things as “Classical Greece,” ”Jewish History,” “Late Antiquity,” “Religion,” “Roman Military History,” and “Science.” I was responsible for the area of “Christianity.” In that capacity, I chose 195 topics that needed articles to be written, ranging from 500 to 2500 words; I solicited scholars to contribute articles; I edited all the articles once they were written; and – well, and lots of other things. The other 21 area-editors did the same for their fields.

The result is an amazing 13 volumes of encyclopedia articles on just about everything you might be interested in knowing about in Western antiquity, from Abantes (the inhabitants of Euboea mentioned, for example, by Homer) to Zygouries (a prehistoric settlement between Corinth and Mycenae). There are over 5000 articles, altogether, each one written by a recognized expert in the field. And each includes a bibliography. The final volume is one big index. Altogether the encyclopedia is 7492 pages. It includes hundreds of photographs, figures, and maps. There will also be an online version, that will be updated as need demands, so that the work will not be antiquated.

Some of the long entries for Christianity were: Apocrypha, Apologists, Constantine, Creeds, Eusebius, Heresiology, Jesus (of course!), Monasticism, Pauline Epistles, Trinity; some of the very short ones were: Acts of Andrew, Ascension of Andrew, Bardesanes, Deisidaimonia (= superstition), Letter to Diognetus, Serapion of Thmuis. Most were between these in length: e.g., Allegory, Apocalypses, Clement of Alexandria, Ebionites, Gospel of John, Muratorian Fragment, Pseudo-Clementines, Valentinus, and and and.

The contributors in early Christianity included some of the top scholars in the world; but also some younger scholars who are top-rate.

So, this may not be a tool that will be sitting on your shelf any time soon. But research libraries should have a copy, and even local libraries that are reasonably well endowed should. *Should*! It was an unreasonable amount of work to produce, but it is one of those reference tools that will serve an entire generation – and more, since it will be continuously updated.

I’m very disciplines, I waste very little time, I focus unusually well, and I work fast…. (I do watch sports on TV; this time of year is very bad: playoffs and national championship tonight; and ACC season has — I regret to say after last night — started….)

I remembering reading one of Dr. Ehrman’s books one time (don’t know which one). He mentioned a scholar who wrote numerous books, about one every year. I got to thinking, Dr. Ehrman is trying to do that too. Funny!

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